short balls: (surprise!) tennis gets dramatic

As Sania’s World Turns: There’s no better soap opera on tennis tour right now than Sania Mirza. She was married on Monday to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik in an affair that has been showered in controversy.

One Story, One Match: The One Story series, which publishes out of Brooklyn, has its latest publication singing game, set and match. The story is set in the Federer-Sampras battle of Wimbledon circa 2001, with a fictional twist involving three ball kids. After reading it, I give Cheston Knapp two thumbs up for his crafting of the epic changing-of-the-guard match and the story he entwines within Centre Court.

Second to Sania and Shoaib, there’s Todd and Novak: For some reason, the player-coach break-up between Todd Martin and Novak Djokovic seems to be the tennis story of the century. While the break-up doesn’t have quite the political ramifications that Sania and Shoaib carry into their marriage, this story has gotten an absorbent of attention. For Novak, something had to change if he wants to be considered for another Slam. For Todd, well… for Todd, any press is good press.

In Tom’s World, Tiger Plays Golf: In the Toronto Globe and Mail, esteemed sports columnist Tom Tebbutt crafted a great piece on Tiger Woods‘s comeback to professional sport. Tebbutt did so by imagining Woods’s comeback if he was a tennis player at Wimbledon, not a golfer at The Masters. The result is golden.

Suddenly Serena… is playing again?! Serena has received a wild card from the Italian Open, to be held in May. It would be her first tournament since winning the Australian Open in January.

Sheriff Querrey: Samrescues the ATP (and its players) in the on-going, almost-as-dramatic-as-Sania-Shoaib-Todd-and-Novak episode of Wayne Odesnik. Listen to the most-recent TSF podcast to hear our take on the saga.